


Building Steam with a Grain of Salt

by verovex



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Actively Ignoring Anything That Happened in 4x11, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternative to Solving the 'How Does Barbara Gordon Come to be Born', Babs the Queen Treats Her Child like a Princess, Baby Bat is Somewhere, Ed & Oswald Are Odd Uncles They Try to Avoid Inviting to Dinner, Established Relationship, F/F, Future Fic, Gotham's Family Values, IUI, Lee is Somehow the Bad Cop, Past Abortion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 21:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13062831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verovex/pseuds/verovex
Summary: When your moms are low-key Queenpins of two districts, your surrogate father is the commissioner of the GCPD, and your Godparents control every other inch of the city — is there any better way to be prepared for whatever Gotham will inevitably throw at you?





	Building Steam with a Grain of Salt

"We met at the GCPD."

"Your mom worked as a Medical Examiner with the GCPD." Barbara tilts her head, long blonde hair tied back in a half-assed bun, amused eyes only for Lee they worked through the rehearsed misrepresentation of their beginnings. "I was on the precinct's payroll as an art consultant, people had a real affinity for stealing museum pieces. I had a thing for your mom the moment I saw her. Can't say it was love at first sight for her though."

"I wasn't interested back then." Lee counters, lifting a mug to her lips, Baileys and Barbara's caffè mocha concoction meeting her tongue. 

"Water under the bridge."

"Eventually it panned out."

"And now you're on the Board of Directors at Arkham," their daughter pointed towards Lee, and then to Barbara, "and you're an Education Officer at Gotham Museum of Art."

"Something like that, sweetie." Barbara nodded, earning an unseen elbow to the torso from Lee.

"It's rude to point," Lee maneuvered to the sink, rinsing out her mug, and placing it in the drying rack. As per usual, Barbara left hers on the counter, and their daughter left her dishes on the kitchen table as she rushed out to grab her school bag. "You're teaching her bad habits," Lee mumbles, once she's out of earshot, "and you need to stop giving her any sort of indication that we're being untruthful to her."

"Leslie,  _baby_ ," Barbara hummed, reaching over to pull a strand of hair behind Lee's ear, "she's going to find out eventually."

"She's not even a teenager yet," Lee lamented, fingers coming up to press against her temple. Age, children, and marriage seemed to bring on more stress headaches than she could've predicted. "Let's wait until she's sixteen."

"Anything for you." Barbara shifted to stand in front of her, taking Lee's hand in hers, running a finger over her wedding ring, using her free hand to rest against the back of Lee's neck, pressing their foreheads together. "Sometimes I think Jim's going to be the one to spill the beans, he's been spending a lot of time with her."

"He's only teaching her how to defend herself, since you coddle her too much to do it yourself." Lee can't prevent the exhale from their proximity, Barbara's breath on her lips proof of how close they were.

Barbara takes the opportunity to lean up and press her lips to Lee's as she attempts to continue scolding her, their lip-lock interrupted by the sound of their daughter's heavy schoolbag being dropped on the floor next to them. Lee chases after Barbara's lips as she moves back, earning a chuckle from the blonde.

"Ready to go?" Lee asks sheepishly, receiving a slow nod from their tween, before detaching herself entirely from Barbara's space, walking over to grab a jacket from the entrance-way, and briefly eyeing herself in the mirror next to the penthouse door. They both give a small wave to Barbara as they leave.

Perhaps if Lee had known it would be their last memory, she might've lingered a little longer, might've given Barbara a proper farewell.

* * *

"I'd been concerned when the invitation had stated the name of their child being in memory of a past beau." Oswald gesticulated to the certificate in Ed's hands, then to the baby in the bassinet, "I'm relieved it's not Isabella. Kristen suits this one much better."

Edward had been Lee's choice of a Godparent, Tabitha had been Barbara's, by proxy Oswald and Butch ended up involved as the Godparent's respective significant others. The circumstance bringing together an implicit treaty that unionized every inch of Gotham to one single child:

_Kristen Barbara Leslie Gordon_

Edward seems beside himself, pulling his arm out of Oswald's grasp, looking around the apartment until he locates Lee, making a beeline for her, leaving Oswald next to the baby with wild red hair — who promptly begins wailing. Barbara tuts from across the room, coming around to take her out from the crib, cradling her against her chest as Oswald grimaces.

"Can't say I thought I'd ever see the day you became a mother, Barbara." Oswald offers, cognizant of the alliance they now held due to their partners, but can't refrain from the jab.

"People  _can_ change, you know." Barbara rocks the child back and forth in her arms, taking one of her smaller arms to point towards Ed. "I believe I owe you two credit for that enlightenment, Oswald."

It'd been true, years of animosity had left Oswald feeling bitter towards their regularly tumultuous friendship, but Barbara hadn't been a threat for quite some time. Oswald had seen many changes within her, but this one had been the most grandiose. The one that saw a shift away from a fascination for old flames and the constant desideratum to knock Oswald from his perch, to this — wanting nothing more than to settle down with Lee and work as a cohesive unit with all of Gotham's elite.

They all had an experience with change, even Tabitha had learned the meaning of patience when it came to their frequent trips to the Narrows, finding that Grundy's memory eventually returned, even if it had been in fragments, and still required thorough beatings in the ring by various contenders. So long as she was present, it started to fall into place, slowly Butch came back.

Now, Tabitha and Butch took care of Uptown, Barbara and Lee maintained the Narrows, Arkham, and Midtown, while Ed and Oswald tended to the Iceberg Lounge as it functioned as a front for legitimacy and their headquarters, as well as seeing to the rest of Downtown.

Any of this only coming to fruition because of the successful execution of Operation Falcone seven years prior, when Sofia was put away upon earning Oswald's cleared name. She'd been given special privileges after being sentenced for life, which resulted in her move to a State Penitentiary in Florida. After which, the puzzle of  _why_ everything always failed amongst them solved itself, they needed to continue working together.

Working together involved perfectly executed heists, the takeover of districts thought to be impossible due to old family blood, using networks each family had as a vestibule for an arsenal of weapons, product, and whatever Edward or Ivy needed for their flavour-of-the-month experiments. They'd been able to ward off incoming threats to the city they didn't see as beneficial, or were able to recruit from the selection of those that survived.

Years of cooperation manifested into something even Jim Gordon came to understand was impenetrable.

In this most recent era, it worked because they had something other than the GCPD to work against, a younger vigilante, Batman if memory served, who yearned for their disbandment.

"He tried to take down Ed the other day." Oswald comments, glancing over Barbara's shoulder, watching Ed interact with Tabitha and Lee. He brings the tumbler in his hands to his lips as he swallows something that definitely  _wasn't_ alcoholic. He gives Barbara a look of absolute revulsion.

"We took a sober vow before Kristen was born." Barbara shrugs. "Maybe if your boy-toy didn't leave clues, he wouldn't have to worry about a guy in a bat get-up chasing him around town."

"Duly noted." Edward speaks up from behind her. Barbara doesn't apologize for the comment, she knows how much Ed's practices infuriate Oswald. "May I hold her?"

Barbara hands Kristen over with a strain. So far other than herself and Lee, she hadn't trusted anyone to hold her, but she supposed it was due time. She watches with concern as Edward travels back to Lee and Tabitha, Lee almost immediately taking Kristen from Ed's arms, no doubt having the same worry.

"Are you two ever going to adopt, or something?" Barbara knows the answer to this, she's discussed it at length with Ed, but a notch closer with Oswald. "Or, is domination still more your speed?"

"Does that really require a reply?"

She hadn't missed the look of longing at the ease of which Edward had taken the child, and knew that all the planning in the world would still only provide the same demise. Neither wanted to give up the beauty in their symbiosis and power by adding something to the mix that would only prove to be a detriment. It had been enough of a pain to establish their relationship, and had taken a substantial amount of effort on Lee's end, but the compromise from both sides. A take on compromise that helped push Barbara to make the changes she needed, was something that would always resonate with her. The one that said there was only so much that could drive two apart, but mutual adoration and love would always prove to be the catalyst to merge their harmonies.

Something that shook her awake to the idea she deserved more, desired more,  _craved_ more. Not like in the way she sought after Jim, despite the  _years_ of pining for a man that didn't recognize her for any worth at all, their prior relationship proof of the immaturity that accompanied youth. Jim was the definition of flawless by her deceased parents standards. He checked every box, and through their death she still harboured an intent to make them proud, even if the socioheterotive norm of it all was archaic and obtuse. They wanted grandchildren, but they didn't want some bisexual's grandchildren, they wanted the kids they could bring to brunch and tell other socialites about the 'correctly' painted picture, the one that had Barbara gruelling over a stove while Jim worked; not the one where Barbara had just beaten a man to death that morning, not even a week after giving birth.

Barbara had seen more awakenings than the average soul, and the one that dislodged her from the magnetic pull of Jim's grasp was the one with Lee's name written all over it. Her reoccurring visits to the Narrows with Tabitha for some _thing_ or another had turned into an excuse to see Lee _just 'cause_. Their shared commonality in a disdain for Jim proved to be of vital importance in chipping away at the wall Lee was trapped behind. They reminisced of the values Jim imposed on their relationships, how family always took precedence over career, how Jim wanted them to give up their jobs if they were to have families, and how  _absurd_ it all was. 

Those weren't just conversations where Lee listened and offered little in return, they were real, cathartic even, musings and mutual understandings from years of experience, shared or not.

Lee initiated intimacy first, after nearly a year of Barbara showing up at her doorstep. They'd been talking about Arkham, talking about the woman in green that had blown a hole in the side of the asylum, just to free a friend. Talks about Ed and Oswald, and their newest affinity of driving Jim up a wall with riddles and explosions, wondering who would eventually cave in sheer exhaustion.

It was humorous, relaxed, and different than anything had been with anyone before. None of it compared to how it felt when Lee kissed her, how it felt to have someone she thought was simply an idea amalgamated into reality. 

To say the rest was history, was the understatement of the century. Yet, here they were with a baby, and everything else did indeed feel like a lifetime ago.

* * *

It had taken a lot of negotiation, and a stiff donation from the Cobblepot Crime Family, but Lee was ecstatic, leading a blindfolded Barbara into the penthouse elevator, as the woman tried to fondle her however she could, in equal excitement.

With great restraint, they made it out of the elevator and down the hall to the door, Lee untying the knot to the cloth, sliding a key into her palm.

"You didn't." Barbara beams, examining the familiar entrance.

"I did." Lee nods, leading Barbara's hand to turn the key in the lock, the click signalling an entrance to a whole new chapter. 

* * *

The first time Lee realizes she doesn't have Barbara to take with her to Mario's grave, as she did every year, she recognizes that she might not be strong enough to do it on her own. 

Kristen is only thirteen, but she takes her along, talks about how Mario was her first husband, that he'd been killed by a virus that had consumed him, similar to one that had tried to overtake Gotham during her lifetime.

"Why can't we go to where mom's buried?" Kristen asks, looking from gravestone to gravestone as they pass in front of them, fingers intertwined with Lee's.

"We never found her body, honey."

"That could mean she's still alive then, right?"

Lee doesn't know what to say, settling on, "how about we visit the grave of who you're named after?"

* * *

Kristen had grown accustomed to the lie of a life her mother was leading, once she'd been old enough. She started by figuring out the coded language everyone spoke in around her. 

From the weekly visits with Edward and Oswald, where Oswald and Lee would speak at length about Arkham (when that really meant the Narrows or Midtown), they'd talk about renovations (which meant clean up), they'd discuss patients (villains), staff (GCPD), treatment plans (murder), and then they'd talk about the quality of life of Oswald's penguins, something she hadn't quite deciphered. 

Edward would go over homework or various calculations with Kristen during this time, as she tried to eavesdrop however she could. Edward enjoyed picking her brain as an objective observer to his infamous array of projects, every once in awhile informing her she could take over if the time came. 

People always seemed to be telling her things like that. Everyone always had an opinion about her future. Jim wanted her to be a cop. Lee wanted her to be a doctor. Ed wanted her to be a scientist.

Barbara had wanted her to be whatever the fuck _she_ wanted.

Why couldn't life go back to being like that? Why did everything have to be so concrete?

It's Ed's turn to converse with Lee, Oswald taking up post next to the teenager. He can tell there's something amiss, but has never been particularly good at gauging how to talk to her efficiently.

"Is something wrong?" Oswald asks, watching her try to read the same page of her Biology textbook for the eighteenth time. 

"What do you think I should be when I grow up?"

Oswald's brows knit, unsure why these are the concerns of a sixteen-year-old. "Don't you need to grow up  _first_?"

"But everyone seems to think I need to make the decision now."

"That's because they don't realize it doesn't matter what they say, you'll be whoever you want to be."

Kristen understood then why Barbara always spoke so highly of Oswald, even if he'd always been cold towards her. Barbara used to say it was because Oswald never had a child of his own, the one he nearly had was taken before he could fully understand what it meant to be a parent. Oswald continued to pride himself on keeping those he cared for at length, even though Ed was an exception to that longstanding rule.

* * *

Days went by where Lee wouldn't make it home, but between Tabitha, Jim, Butch, Edward, or Oswald, she was never left alone.

The only one who didn't speak in obvious code was Jim, he'd always been transparent about his job, especially once it had evolved into being Commissioner.

Kristen always wanted to ask him about Barbara, talk to him about her mom's past, things Jim might know that maybe Lee didn't want to talk about, but any time she opened her mouth, she found herself quiet.

Jim always winced whenever he called her Barbara, as if there'd been never been enough sutures in the world to keep that wound shut.

Kristen missed her endlessly, at points she could've sworn she'd seen her — when she left school, when she went to Kendo, she could feel Barbara watching over her.

She wanted to understand. Wanted to understand why everyone thought it was okay to hide the fact the family she'd grown up with embodied the terror that kept Jim in the job, and featured an evasive Bat of a Man that wanted nothing more than to bring them down. Wanted to understand why everyone thought it was okay to disguise her mom's death as an accident, when it was clearly just a circumstance to the life they lived. One that had her worried the moment Lee stepped outside, and sent someone in place to take care of her, even if she was old enough to take care of herself.

"Tell me about her."

"Who?" The request throws Jim off-kilter, middle of slurping ramen noodles from a bowl.

"My mom."

Jim doesn't need to know which one, seems like he's been dying for her to ask, instantly jumping into talks about when they had met, _'back in College'_ , how Barbara had been a different person than when she had passed. How he'd experienced her love on a level so far beneath what she felt and expressed for Kristen and Lee. How Barbara showed love with all her heart, dove head first without a life jacket to wade through the currents, attempted,  _failed_ , but picked herself up and  _tried_  again — it was a Barbara Queen special. How Jim was envious of her constant ability to prevail, and still look like she had come out on top, even if everything had blown up in her face.

How none of this made sense if Barbara was just an Education Officer at the Gotham Museum of Art, but Kristen doesn't want to make light of Jim's candour.

Someone would have answers they were willing to give.

It's later that evening, when she's woken up by the shushes and whispers outside her door that she finds the will to look, watching as Tabitha carries an unconscious Lee to the washroom. Edward and Oswald closely following behind, turning the light on as Tabitha enters, knowing every inch of the apartment like the back of her hand.

Kristen finds the courage to open her door, practically vaulting to the bathroom door before Jim even notices her cross the threshold of the hallway. She emits a gasp, forcing the snap of each of the occupant's heads in her direction. Lee is _drenched_ in blood, situated now in the tub, Tabitha raising a cloth to her forehead, wiping off as much as she can, as the shower head cascades a stream of water over her mother.

"Kristen—" Jim starts, pulling at her shoulder from behind her. 

"Barbara." Kristen corrects.

"Barbara, you should go back to sleep. She's not gravely injured, just caught in the wrong place at the wrong end of an explosion."

"Would you sleep if your mom came home passed out and covered in blood?" Kristen snaps, they _still_ wanted to keep her in the dark, even now? It wasn't fair. She already knew everything there was to know, on her own research alone. Everyone tiptoeing around her made her more inclined to figure it all out. The more years went by, the more hatred she gained for Gotham's underworld, even if her parents were both placeholders.

"Take the damn training wheels off already!" Tabitha bellows, air suddenly tense, "she wanted her to know."

"It's not our decision to make." Oswald ascertains for the remainder of the group. "But, we will talk to Lee about it when she's awake."

* * *

"What's the green jellybean need today?" Kristen asks when Ed enters the apartment without even a knock. She hasn't even seen him, just makes the assumption based on the sound of his steps across the tile at the entrance.

"Kristen, you're—"

"Barbara, I told you to call me Barbara."

"Yes, _Barbara_ ," Edward elongates the name more than necessary, "I didn't realize you'd be home."

"Well if you're looking for my mom, she's gone out." At the lack of response, Kristen rotates fully in her chair, looking to find Ed's in the closet next to the door, rifling through their coats. "Clearly you weren't here for her."

"Always a perceptive one, aren't you?" Ed makes an ' _ah-ha_ ' noise as he pulls out a box from one of the jackets, running a thumb over the small box's velvet exterior. 

"That's not," Kristen starts, large smile in place as she rushes over, "it is!"

"It is." Ed pops it open, revealing two rings, as Kristen excitedly jumps from heel to heel.

"When?"

"Tonight."

"Where?"

"The mansion."

"Simple. I like it."

Edward nods, "everything else has always been so complicated, it only makes sense for this to be the least."

Kristen gains as many details as she can before allowing Ed to leave, not before making the comment, "I wish mom could've been around to see it. She was the biggest fan of you two."

He heaves a sigh, "I wish she could be here too. I do miss her meddling, it might've made this happen sooner."

* * *

Barbara had skirted the subject of children for months, shutting down the majority of the conversations that came with them. It was difficult enough being a queer couple, adding the difficulty of adopting, or 'finding the money' for Intrauterine Insemination was constantly preventing any progress in the discussion. They had plenty of money to spare, which Lee was slowly attributing to there being another reason entirely for Barbara's resistance.

"Do you not want kids?" Lee presses, after Barbara shoots down a list of names she loved.

"Of course I do."

"Do you not want  _my_ kids?" Lee tries instead, which forces Barbara into action, twirling around to grip her hands around Lee's elbows.

"There is no one else I could imagine having children with."

"Then what is it?"

It's the first time in a long time Lee sees Barbara's nervous ticks, the way she takes to twiddling her thumbs, until that's not enough and she's scratching her nails against the bare skin of her arm. This woman in front of her had killed dozens of people. In fact, that morning, she'd returned home with Tabitha in tow, both speckled with blood, slanted smiles and laughter lighting the room, yet, whatever was plaguing her mind had been enough to set her in such distress.

Barbara could tell her anything. It's what made them work.

"I had an abortion."

It seems so menial, so insignificant in the grand scheme of events, but it'd been enough to torment Barbara since she'd been twenty-one, when she had to travel to the clinic by herself to have the procedure done, because she'd been too terrified to tell Jim of the situation. She'd been too scared that he'd tell her to keep it, that 'they'd make it happen', but they had just started dating, they weren't even done College, it made no sense to have a child.

She didn't want to carry to term a child that wouldn't be loved, didn't want to leave it with an orphanage that wouldn't be able to confirm its future; but none of that stopped her from feeling a lifetime's worth of guilt after the fact. But, Lee's there to accept her, to tell her there's nothing wrong with what she'd chosen to do, that it had been the right thing for that stage of her life. It'd been the mature thing to do, even if she'd carried the weight of it for so many years, Lee was there to take half. It's what she'd vowed to do, and Barbara deserved to have a child now, even if she'd given one up in the past.

Barbara said she would carry their child, knowing how concerned Lee was over losing another. Perhaps that just led to Barbara coddling the child far too much down the line, but Lee learned it was a part of the beauty in how Barbara loved.

They obviously had their pick of the litter when it came to men in their lives, but Jim's the one they ask for a donation, one he's all too willing to give, so long as he has a part in the child's life, not as a parent, but a substantial role. They'd been hoping that would be the case, having decided quite some time ago in the process that they'd likely leave the child with Jim's surname. If anything were to happen to one, or them both, they knew their child would be safe with him.

They wanted their child to live a normal life, to grow up shrouded from the knowledge of Gotham's true nature, of  _their_ true selves.

* * *

There'd been no funeral, no casket, no formal notice in the Gazette, no autopsy,  _nothing._  Kristen waited to gain some finality to the question of why she only had one parent instead of two, but never earned the answer. Eventually she settled on it being why her living mother kept eight cell phones, why they moved through the city with bodyguards, why the town car was bulletproof, why there were numerous secret closets featuring various assault rifles and handguns, in the apartment, if you knew which buttons to press.

Now, after witnessing her mother come home covered head to toe in blood that was not her own, she thought she deserved to know the truth of it all. She felt like an interrogator, her mother on one end of the long kitchen table, her on the other. She wants to be the one to lead the conversation, to express how much she's in control of this, how much she knows, how Lee can't get away with lying to her anymore. But, she can see how exhausted Lee is, knows that today is the eve of when Barbara went missing.

"I _am_ on the Board of Directors for Arkham," Lee doesn't know the course of this, hasn't pinpointed a map to having this discussion, all she wishes is that Barbara was  _there_ , holding her hand, telling her it would be okay, no harm would come of Kristen, "but I do work as a doctor for Oswald's business ventures."

"You mean you work as his partner."

"We're all his partners, Tabitha, Butch, Ed, myself, and him, we work together."

"And mom wasn't an Education Officer."

Lee chuckled, "far from it."

"What actually happened to her?"

It takes several calculative moments for Lee to decide how to address this, but she wants Kristen to understand, wants her to see that things won't always feel the way they do right then.

"She's not dead, Kristen." It feels like a weight has been lifted off her chest, something that's been pressing down for years, holding her from taking a proper breath, from admitting it out loud. "Oswald's been housing her up North, after she was hurt by a group called the League of Assassins, that blamed her for something she didn't do. She was hunted for months, but once they thought they had successfully killed her, she went into hiding. She couldn't come back and risk us getting killed."

Kristen can't decide what hurts more, that all the agony she'd endured over the years had been for nothing, or that Lee didn't think she'd been worth telling her the truth. None of this brought relief.

Perhaps it hurt more because it was so fresh, she couldn't hold Lee at fault for it. She just wanted their family to be whole again.

"Can we go and see her?"

"Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> This is _technically_ a part of something that's in the middle of being planned out, but I really needed to write it out now to try and get over my lack of enthusiasm after 4x11. Also, Lee  & Babs as a pairing has been fucking me right up~ : ' )  
> Happy holidays.


End file.
